With senior Marquise Young of Sterling leading off and senior Nicholas Razze from Pitman on the 3rd leg, Rowan’s 1,600-meter relay team advanced to the final at the NCAA Division 3 Championships.
And freshman Eli Hendricks from Penns Grove, senior Shamar Love from Bridgeton and junior Robert McKinney from Highland all ran on the Profs’ 400-meter relay team, which also advanced to the final.
In the 4-by-4, Rowan ran 3:11.33 with Young Parsippany’s Nana Agyemang, Razze and Amara Conte from Ferris High in Jersey City. Young, Agyemang and Conte – along with Sterling’s Jah’mere Beasley – set the school record of 3:08.74 a year ago this week when they placed 3rd at the 2023 NCAA Division 3 meet in Rochester, N.Y.
It took 3:12.65 just to qualify for the final, scheduled for 8 p.m. Saturday at Doug Shaw Memorial Stadium in Myrtle Beach, S.C.
Bethel University of St. Paul, Minn., led all qualifiers in 3:10.15 and Mount Union ran 3:11.04. Other qualifiers were John Carroll [3:11.80], Wisconsin La Crosse [3:11.88], Dubuque [3:12.21], Wisconsin-Eau Claire [3:12.60] and Williams [3:12.65].
The top two finishers in each of two races automatically advance to the final, as well as the next four-fastest times. Rowan was 2nd to Mount Union in the 1st race for a large-Q qualifier.
In the 4-by-100, Agyemang led off, followed by Hendricks, Love and McKinney. They ran 40.63, 3rd-fastest time in school history and the 7th-fastest qualifier for the final at 4:15 p.m. Saturday.
La Crosse led all qualifiers in 39.92, only 6-100ths of a second off their NCAA Division 3 record set in the qualifying rounds last year in Rochester.
Rowan ran 40.14 last year at NCAAs in Rochester and placed 2nd to La Crosse’s 39.96 with Love, Beasley, Agyemang and Kingsway’s Evan Corcoran. The Profs’ time is 3rd-fastest in NCAA Division 1 history.
Beasley is now a senior at Rutgers. Corcoran is a Rowan sophomore and was NJAC runner-up indoors at both 60 and 200 meters but hasn’t raced since mid-April.
From the Backstretch by Reuben Frank 